Author
Topic: Overheard at Work (Read 9127541 times)

I have a coworker who stayed up to 3 A.M. to pre-order the iPhone X. I believe he's either gotten every generation or every other that comes out. Some people like their tech, but this guy has said he has over $100,000 student from switching majors as well as going back to get his masters in Healthcare Informatics. It helped him get this pretty well paying job for the area.

The thing that drives me NUTS is I'll ask him what his family (wife & daughter) did over the weekend and almost every time they went shopping. Also he says they HAVE to buy their daughter something small when they do or else!

Spoiled child! My coworker has one of those. He told me the other day that his wife has bought SIX Halloween costumes for their daughter (3 years old I think?) because the daughter likes to try them on and look in the mirror. I foresee this child becoming terrible as she gets older.

Also he says they HAVE to buy their daughter something small when they do or else!

Yes!

My friends' kids expect something every time they go shopping, even if it's just for groceries.

And the expectation that the kids need to be entertained every day of weekends and school holidays is such that when they didn't leave the house one day and just stayed home, she "had to" make it up to them the next day by buying them a new movie on Bluray. ಠ_ಠ

I have a coworker who stayed up to 3 A.M. to pre-order the iPhone X. I believe he's either gotten every generation or every other that comes out. Some people like their tech, but this guy has said he has over $100,000 student from switching majors as well as going back to get his masters in Healthcare Informatics. It helped him get this pretty well paying job for the area.

The thing that drives me NUTS is I'll ask him what his family (wife & daughter) did over the weekend and almost every time they went shopping. Also he says they HAVE to buy their daughter something small when they do or else!

Spoiled child! My coworker has one of those. He told me the other day that his wife has bought SIX Halloween costumes for their daughter (3 years old I think?) because the daughter likes to try them on and look in the mirror. I foresee this child becoming terrible as she gets older.

I just bought 5 halloween costumes... from goodwill. 1 for halloween and 4 to go in a 'dress up' box for Christmas

I have a coworker who stayed up to 3 A.M. to pre-order the iPhone X. I believe he's either gotten every generation or every other that comes out. Some people like their tech, but this guy has said he has over $100,000 student from switching majors as well as going back to get his masters in Healthcare Informatics. It helped him get this pretty well paying job for the area.

The thing that drives me NUTS is I'll ask him what his family (wife & daughter) did over the weekend and almost every time they went shopping. Also he says they HAVE to buy their daughter something small when they do or else!

It's shopping as a hobby. It's not even about owning the thing any more, it's about the process of looking and buying.

Also he says they HAVE to buy their daughter something small when they do or else!

Yes!

My friends' kids expect something every time they go shopping, even if it's just for groceries.

And the expectation that the kids need to be entertained every day of weekends and school holidays is such that when they didn't leave the house one day and just stayed home, she "had to" make it up to them the next day by buying them a new movie on Bluray. ಠ_ಠ

The grocery store we go to most frequently has a basket of free fruit for kids. Which is a nice idea in theory, but my son now expects a piece of fruit every time we grocery shop. Ugh.

Also he says they HAVE to buy their daughter something small when they do or else!

Yes!

My friends' kids expect something every time they go shopping, even if it's just for groceries.

And the expectation that the kids need to be entertained every day of weekends and school holidays is such that when they didn't leave the house one day and just stayed home, she "had to" make it up to them the next day by buying them a new movie on Bluray. ಠ_ಠ

The grocery store we go to most frequently has a basket of free fruit for kids. Which is a nice idea in theory, but my son now expects a piece of fruit every time we grocery shop. Ugh.

Once during a summer vacation my friend and I went to the local town for shopping. She mentioned there that she had to buy something for her son. I reminded her of the fact that his aunt had just given him a present the day before. But that was obviously not an argument, neither the fact that there was no reason to celibrate anything.

My mother's family have been farm owners for the last century and a half. That's how I know how stubborn they are. They do very well financially most years, however they focus mostly on niche markets with a high margin, and they're committed to mixed farming. When something is no longer profitable, they drop it.

The changes in the egg industry actually caused my grandmother to quit the egg business because she couldn't be decent to the birds and also turn a profit. Industry-wise it's been a gigantic race to the bottom.

Sometimes I think our whole friggin' economy is a race to the bottom b/c of our American fascination with the absolutely lowest prices while ignoring all else. Our country is not playing the long game - if it ever was - and we ought to be making choices with the long game in mind.

My mother's family have been farm owners for the last century and a half. That's how I know how stubborn they are. They do very well financially most years, however they focus mostly on niche markets with a high margin, and they're committed to mixed farming. When something is no longer profitable, they drop it.

The changes in the egg industry actually caused my grandmother to quit the egg business because she couldn't be decent to the birds and also turn a profit. Industry-wise it's been a gigantic race to the bottom.

Sometimes I think our whole friggin' economy is a race to the bottom b/c of our American fascination with the absolutely lowest prices while ignoring all else. Our country is not playing the long game - if it ever was - and we ought to be making choices with the long game in mind.

I wonder if it's to do with the myth of superabundance that the first European settlers had - that the New World was so huge and fertile and full of natural resources that there's no way they could ever use it all up.

My mother's family have been farm owners for the last century and a half. That's how I know how stubborn they are. They do very well financially most years, however they focus mostly on niche markets with a high margin, and they're committed to mixed farming. When something is no longer profitable, they drop it.

The changes in the egg industry actually caused my grandmother to quit the egg business because she couldn't be decent to the birds and also turn a profit. Industry-wise it's been a gigantic race to the bottom.

Sometimes I think our whole friggin' economy is a race to the bottom b/c of our American fascination with the absolutely lowest prices while ignoring all else. Our country is not playing the long game - if it ever was - and we ought to be making choices with the long game in mind.

I wonder if it's to do with the myth of superabundance that the first European settlers had - that the New World was so huge and fertile and full of natural resources that there's no way they could ever use it all up.

I think it's largely about the fact that money is the thing we keep score by at this point in history -- not decency, honesty, achievement, innovation, compassion, self-actualization. Nope. All our culture keeps score by is money. Which means that every other value gets thrown under the bus automatically.

This is the same guy from a few pages back who won't bother with the effort to save the $500 on his insurance premiums.

Background: At work we get quarterly bonuses. These are based on location performance as a whole on certain goals. We score 0-5 and then you get that percent of your salary for the quarter as your bonus. There's also a flat amount for being safe each quarter. We have two safety focus meetings each month. To be eligible for this bonus, you have to attend two meetings during the quarter and also fill out two safety cards a month, which takes about 60 seconds.

I mentioned that I needed to do my safety cards today, since it's the last day of the first month of the new quarter. Coworker: I haven't done mine. I don't need that money, why should I care about that?

We haven't had a great year so we've only gotten 1% or 2% bonuses, but I'm still going to get $1600 for the year, maybe a couple hundred more once I find out how we scored for the third quarter. I just don't get it. You even get paid an hour of overtime to go to the meetings.

This is the same guy from a few pages back who won't bother with the effort to save the $500 on his insurance premiums.

Background: At work we get quarterly bonuses. These are based on location performance as a whole on certain goals. We score 0-5 and then you get that percent of your salary for the quarter as your bonus. There's also a flat amount for being safe each quarter. We have two safety focus meetings each month. To be eligible for this bonus, you have to attend two meetings during the quarter and also fill out two safety cards a month, which takes about 60 seconds.

I mentioned that I needed to do my safety cards today, since it's the last day of the first month of the new quarter. Coworker: I haven't done mine. I don't need that money, why should I care about that?

We haven't had a great year so we've only gotten 1% or 2% bonuses, but I'm still going to get $1600 for the year, maybe a couple hundred more once I find out how we scored for the third quarter. I just don't get it. You even get paid an hour of overtime to go to the meetings.

This seems like the type of person that wouldn't take full advantage of company 401k matching, or other completely free money opportunities that sometimes come up in the working world.

CW bought a new house in the suburbs and commuted via the toll road (most of us did; our employer was located on the toll highway and Houston traffic is evil).

Six months later, she announced she was changing her start time to 30 minutes later, because she refused to take the toll road anymore, and it took 60 minutes to travel the 15 miles on the free roads.

You see, a lawyer had contacted her. She owed >$10k to the toll authority.

The credit card on file with the toll authority had expired..but she didn't see the MULTITUDE of notices they mailed ..because the address on file with the toll authority was her sister's house (where she had stayed temporarily years before)...And she never picked up her mail from her sister's house (despite her sister's nagging)....Because if it was really important, someone would call her (so sister threw it all away unopened at the end of the month).....AND she never checked her credit card statement, so she didn't notice that she wasn't being charged for tolls every month.

There was a $25 fine for every time she went through a toll booth without a way to pay for it...and she went through 4 toll booths a day, 4-5 days a week, for months.

I had never seen her that angry. At the TOLL AUTHORITY. Because, obviously, they should have tried harder to let her know that her credit card had expired/she was racking up fines. Or, at the very least, they should have waived the fines when she said she was sorry and fixed the problem.

We talked her out of calling one of the local television station. She thought they've be as outraged as she was and help her get a deal.

CW bought a new house in the suburbs and commuted via the toll road (most of us did; our employer was located on the toll highway and Houston traffic is evil).

Six months later, she announced she was changing her start time to 30 minutes later, because she refused to take the toll road anymore, and it took 60 minutes to travel the 15 miles on the free roads.

You see, a lawyer had contacted her. She owed >$10k to the toll authority.

The credit card on file with the toll authority had expired..but she didn't see the MULTITUDE of notices they mailed ..because the address on file with the toll authority was her sister's house (where she had stayed temporarily years before)...And she never picked up her mail from her sister's house (despite her sister's nagging)....Because if it was really important, someone would call her (so sister threw it all away unopened at the end of the month).....AND she never checked her credit card statement, so she didn't notice that she wasn't being charged for tolls every month.

There was a $25 fine for every time she went through a toll booth without a way to pay for it...and she went through 4 toll booths a day, 4-5 days a week, for months.

I had never seen her that angry. At the TOLL AUTHORITY. Because, obviously, they should have tried harder to let her know that her credit card had expired/she was racking up fines. Or, at the very least, they should have waived the fines when she said she was sorry and fixed the problem.

We talked her out of calling one of the local television station. She thought they've be as outraged as she was and help her get a deal.

This is rich. I suppose there's nothing quite like screwing someone else over for months on end, ignoring every possible opportunity to make it right, pooh-poohing everybody who tries to alert you to a problem, and then blaming the person, company, or organization you screwed over for doing what it takes to stop being screwed over. It's like being angry at a bank or credit union because there were consequences to setting up overdraft protection and deliberately taking cash withdrawals from an account you knew to be empty, repeatedly overdrawing it.

This is the same guy from a few pages back who won't bother with the effort to save the $500 on his insurance premiums.

Background: At work we get quarterly bonuses. These are based on location performance as a whole on certain goals. We score 0-5 and then you get that percent of your salary for the quarter as your bonus. There's also a flat amount for being safe each quarter. We have two safety focus meetings each month. To be eligible for this bonus, you have to attend two meetings during the quarter and also fill out two safety cards a month, which takes about 60 seconds.

I mentioned that I needed to do my safety cards today, since it's the last day of the first month of the new quarter. Coworker: I haven't done mine. I don't need that money, why should I care about that?

We haven't had a great year so we've only gotten 1% or 2% bonuses, but I'm still going to get $1600 for the year, maybe a couple hundred more once I find out how we scored for the third quarter. I just don't get it. You even get paid an hour of overtime to go to the meetings.

My 60 yr old coworker claims she has to work forever because she "didn't know our job offered a 401k" and couldn't save up money therefore. She says it wasn't available 10+ yrs ago when she started. This is a very large company and I can guarantee there was a plan back then. Its on the website, its in the next years benefits guide that gets distributed all over, and all the retirement seminars center about how to manage your pension and your 401k etc. From the way this claim was made, I am assuming she still wasn't enrolled when she was saying it.

My 60 yr old coworker claims she has to work forever because she "didn't know our job offered a 401k" and couldn't save up money therefore. She says it wasn't available 10+ yrs ago when she started. This is a very large company and I can guarantee there was a plan back then. Its on the website, its in the next years benefits guide that gets distributed all over, and all the retirement seminars center about how to manage your pension and your 401k etc. From the way this claim was made, I am assuming she still wasn't enrolled when she was saying it.

See this drives me nuts for two reasons1. The intentional ignorance 2. The fact that you are allowed to save money NOT in a 401k. Like in a Roth. Or -gasp- a bank account.

My 60 yr old coworker claims she has to work forever because she "didn't know our job offered a 401k" and couldn't save up money therefore. She says it wasn't available 10+ yrs ago when she started. This is a very large company and I can guarantee there was a plan back then. Its on the website, its in the next years benefits guide that gets distributed all over, and all the retirement seminars center about how to manage your pension and your 401k etc. From the way this claim was made, I am assuming she still wasn't enrolled when she was saying it.

See this drives me nuts for two reasons1. The intentional ignorance 2. The fact that you are allowed to save money NOT in a 401k. Like in a Roth. Or -gasp- a bank account.

This is the same guy from a few pages back who won't bother with the effort to save the $500 on his insurance premiums.

Background: At work we get quarterly bonuses. These are based on location performance as a whole on certain goals. We score 0-5 and then you get that percent of your salary for the quarter as your bonus. There's also a flat amount for being safe each quarter. We have two safety focus meetings each month. To be eligible for this bonus, you have to attend two meetings during the quarter and also fill out two safety cards a month, which takes about 60 seconds.

I mentioned that I needed to do my safety cards today, since it's the last day of the first month of the new quarter. Coworker: I haven't done mine. I don't need that money, why should I care about that?

We haven't had a great year so we've only gotten 1% or 2% bonuses, but I'm still going to get $1600 for the year, maybe a couple hundred more once I find out how we scored for the third quarter. I just don't get it. You even get paid an hour of overtime to go to the meetings.

Why are they working if they don't need the money?? *head explodes*

I think he needs the paycheck, he just can't be bothered to make an extra $2k! He also works more than me and works the night shift, so gets an extra $0.30 an hour for that. So that would makes his over $2k.

Oh, and if you go to at least 14 of the meetings in person, and do a make up sheet for the ones you miss, you get two extra days off. Guess what, he can't be bothered to do that either. I'm already going to at least 8 a year, so you can bet I'm attending a few extra for more time off.

This is the same guy from a few pages back who won't bother with the effort to save the $500 on his insurance premiums.

Background: At work we get quarterly bonuses. These are based on location performance as a whole on certain goals. We score 0-5 and then you get that percent of your salary for the quarter as your bonus. There's also a flat amount for being safe each quarter. We have two safety focus meetings each month. To be eligible for this bonus, you have to attend two meetings during the quarter and also fill out two safety cards a month, which takes about 60 seconds.

I mentioned that I needed to do my safety cards today, since it's the last day of the first month of the new quarter. Coworker: I haven't done mine. I don't need that money, why should I care about that?

We haven't had a great year so we've only gotten 1% or 2% bonuses, but I'm still going to get $1600 for the year, maybe a couple hundred more once I find out how we scored for the third quarter. I just don't get it. You even get paid an hour of overtime to go to the meetings.

Why are they working if they don't need the money?? *head explodes*

I think he needs the paycheck, he just can't be bothered to make an extra $2k! He also works more than me and works the night shift, so gets an extra $0.30 an hour for that. So that would makes his over $2k.

Oh, and if you go to at least 14 of the meetings in person, and do a make up sheet for the ones you miss, you get two extra days off. Guess what, he can't be bothered to do that either. I'm already going to at least 8 a year, so you can bet I'm attending a few extra for more time off.

I think he needs the paycheck, he just can't be bothered to make an extra $2k! He also works more than me and works the night shift, so gets an extra $0.30 an hour for that. So that would makes his over $2k.

Oh, and if you go to at least 14 of the meetings in person, and do a make up sheet for the ones you miss, you get two extra days off. Guess what, he can't be bothered to do that either. I'm already going to at least 8 a year, so you can bet I'm attending a few extra for more time off.

Offer to do his cards for him for a 50% cut.

This is genius! Do ittttt. Tell him you'll complete the "make-up sheets" for the meetings he doesn't attend too, that way you can just fill out a couple of forms and earn an extra buck.

I think he needs the paycheck, he just can't be bothered to make an extra $2k! He also works more than me and works the night shift, so gets an extra $0.30 an hour for that. So that would makes his over $2k.

Oh, and if you go to at least 14 of the meetings in person, and do a make up sheet for the ones you miss, you get two extra days off. Guess what, he can't be bothered to do that either. I'm already going to at least 8 a year, so you can bet I'm attending a few extra for more time off.

My job has one of those health incentives where you earn points by doing things like logging your miles / steps / biking (they reimburse for pedometers and fit bits), getting a flu shot, taking online courses in meditation stress management etc. Takes about 2 hours of total work (outside of the walking you'd normally be doing in your day if you're not completely sedentary) and you get $450. Only a small fraction of people do it. I mentioned it to my team and they all seemed unaware, or that it was too hard to complete. DERP

CW bought a new house in the suburbs and commuted via the toll road (most of us did; our employer was located on the toll highway and Houston traffic is evil).

Six months later, she announced she was changing her start time to 30 minutes later, because she refused to take the toll road anymore, and it took 60 minutes to travel the 15 miles on the free roads.

You see, a lawyer had contacted her. She owed >$10k to the toll authority.

The credit card on file with the toll authority had expired..but she didn't see the MULTITUDE of notices they mailed ..because the address on file with the toll authority was her sister's house (where she had stayed temporarily years before)...And she never picked up her mail from her sister's house (despite her sister's nagging)....Because if it was really important, someone would call her (so sister threw it all away unopened at the end of the month).....AND she never checked her credit card statement, so she didn't notice that she wasn't being charged for tolls every month.

There was a $25 fine for every time she went through a toll booth without a way to pay for it...and she went through 4 toll booths a day, 4-5 days a week, for months.

I had never seen her that angry. At the TOLL AUTHORITY. Because, obviously, they should have tried harder to let her know that her credit card had expired/she was racking up fines. Or, at the very least, they should have waived the fines when she said she was sorry and fixed the problem.

We talked her out of calling one of the local television station. She thought they've be as outraged as she was and help her get a deal.

I have a little sympathy. If they are fining her for tolls, they should send letters to the address her license plates are registered to, not the address the toll tag is registered to. If her car was registered to the wrong address, well thatís a much bigger problem, since itís actually the law to notify dmv but not so much the toll authority.

This is probably colored by my personal experience being that toll authorities have the crappiest service and systems on earth. Iíve had my tag disabled because my credit card was expiredó but I still had plenty of cash value on the tag.

My 60 yr old coworker claims she has to work forever because she "didn't know our job offered a 401k" and couldn't save up money therefore. She says it wasn't available 10+ yrs ago when she started. This is a very large company and I can guarantee there was a plan back then. Its on the website, its in the next years benefits guide that gets distributed all over, and all the retirement seminars center about how to manage your pension and your 401k etc. From the way this claim was made, I am assuming she still wasn't enrolled when she was saying it.

See this drives me nuts for two reasons1. The intentional ignorance 2. The fact that you are allowed to save money NOT in a 401k. Like in a Roth. Or -gasp- a bank account.

In Texas, we renew our registration once a year, and I don't think I've ever notified the county when I moved; I waited until I got the annual notice forwarded to me. It always had a section for changing your address. I did change my driver's license address, but that's not connected to my license plates.

If she was doing the same thing, it's possible her registration wasn't due yet (since she'd only moved 6 months before), and the fine letters were going to her old apartment and being thrown away by the new resident.

If you have a toll tag, it tries to read that first, and the toll tags aren't always paid by the car owner. I bought my then-fiance a toll tag for Christmas while we were dating and paid all the tolls for him to come visit me before we moved in together. If there was an issue with the tag, it really should have been my problem, not his.

My 60 yr old coworker claims she has to work forever because she "didn't know our job offered a 401k" and couldn't save up money therefore. She says it wasn't available 10+ yrs ago when she started. This is a very large company and I can guarantee there was a plan back then. Its on the website, its in the next years benefits guide that gets distributed all over, and all the retirement seminars center about how to manage your pension and your 401k etc. From the way this claim was made, I am assuming she still wasn't enrolled when she was saying it.

See this drives me nuts for two reasons1. The intentional ignorance 2. The fact that you are allowed to save money NOT in a 401k. Like in a Roth. Or -gasp- a bank account.

I'd say those 2 items are really the same thing.

A Roth and a bank account? Explain.

1 and 2. Not being "aware" that you can save elsewhere is intentional ignorance.

My 60 yr old coworker claims she has to work forever because she "didn't know our job offered a 401k" and couldn't save up money therefore. She says it wasn't available 10+ yrs ago when she started. This is a very large company and I can guarantee there was a plan back then. Its on the website, its in the next years benefits guide that gets distributed all over, and all the retirement seminars center about how to manage your pension and your 401k etc. From the way this claim was made, I am assuming she still wasn't enrolled when she was saying it.

See this drives me nuts for two reasons1. The intentional ignorance 2. The fact that you are allowed to save money NOT in a 401k. Like in a Roth. Or -gasp- a bank account.

I'd say those 2 items are really the same thing.

A Roth and a bank account? Explain.

1 and 2. Not being "aware" that you can save elsewhere is intentional ignorance.

My job has one of those health incentives where you earn points by doing things like logging your miles / steps / biking (they reimburse for pedometers and fit bits), getting a flu shot, taking online courses in meditation stress management etc. Takes about 2 hours of total work (outside of the walking you'd normally be doing in your day if you're not completely sedentary) and you get $450. Only a small fraction of people do it. I mentioned it to my team and they all seemed unaware, or that it was too hard to complete. DERP

Not quite the same, but I was always shocked when I worked in higher ed by how few of my peers took advantage of the tuition waivers that employees received. A full time employee, and that employee's spouse, could take two classes for free every semester. Including summers, that's six classes a year, or eighteen credit hours, at a school that costs more than $1,000 per credit hour.

Between my wife and I we completed three degrees for free before I took my shiny new credentials to a better job.

My job has one of those health incentives where you earn points by doing things like logging your miles / steps / biking (they reimburse for pedometers and fit bits), getting a flu shot, taking online courses in meditation stress management etc. Takes about 2 hours of total work (outside of the walking you'd normally be doing in your day if you're not completely sedentary) and you get $450. Only a small fraction of people do it. I mentioned it to my team and they all seemed unaware, or that it was too hard to complete. DERP

Not quite the same, but I was always shocked when I worked in higher ed by how few of my peers took advantage of the tuition waivers that employees received. A full time employee, and that employee's spouse, could take two classes for free every semester. Including summers, that's six classes a year, or eighteen credit hours, at a school that costs more than $1,000 per credit hour.

Between my wife and I we completed three degrees for free before I took my shiny new credentials to a better job.

My current employer has a great tuition reimbursement (of course, it is taxed). (Of course, when I got my master's I didn't have access to one.)I thought about going and getting another master's degree just as something to do if I didn't get pregnant.

But to work full-time, take care of a newborn, and do classes just wasn't going to be possible!

Now I need to stay here until she is through with college, because their dependent reimbursement is even better than their staff!

"I'm going to drive an hour round-trip to save 10 cents a gallon on gas!"

:/

Wow... Assuming 60 miles round trip, 30 miles per gallon, and gas at $2.466/gallon... they would have to fill up at least 50 gallons to make the trip worth it.

Well, that's easy, just take four cars. /s

*slow clap*

Logged

We are two former teachers who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, and now travel the world full time with two kids.If you want to know more about me, or how we did that, or see lots of pictures, this Business Insider profile tells our story pretty well.We (occasionally) blog at AdventuringAlong.com.You can also read my forum "Journal."

CW bought a new house in the suburbs and commuted via the toll road (most of us did; our employer was located on the toll highway and Houston traffic is evil).

As a native Houstonian and have lived here my entire life, I've actively avoided toll roads the whole time. I feel as if they are mostly a scam. I feel sorry for the people who live and/or work off of them.

What part of Houston are you located in? I've yet to meet any Mustachians in my area, although I am sure there are quite a few inner loopers.

To keep my post on the topic:

Yesterday, we had a little meeting at work to announce stuff like birthdays, babies, anniversaries, and promotions. One of my bosses announced that he was moving into a new home. Someone proceeded to ask a typical Houston question, "How far is the commute now?" Insinuating that it was going to be longer, as most people move farther and farther away as they make more money (kind of backward, right?)

Anyways, his reply was, "Oh you know, the same terrible commute down xx highway. It'll still be the regular 45 minutes or so, so not too bad really."

I was facepalming hard in my head, thinking about how he made a conscious decision to move slightly farther from work for a bigger, more luxurious house, in another bland suburban neighborhood. The prices of homes in that neighborhood, in case anyone was wondering, average 425k and 3,000 square feet. That's mansion status in my mind.

For that price, he could live within 2 miles of his job, still be in an amazing community, and have 1.5+ hours of his life back per day (or: 7.5h a week, 30h a month, 360h a year). I subscribe to the "day within a day" philosophy from the book "How to Live on 24 Hours a Day" by Arnold Bennett, so that extra 1.5 hours would be a LOT of hobby/family time!

Then the worst part was, everyone else seemed to be envying his decision and home purchase. Another co-worker said after he gets married next year, he's planning on moving to the 'burbs for the "community" aspect. As having lived in 2 major suburbs of Houston and lived in the city, there is no community in EITHER unless you make a ton of effort. But in the 'burbs it's even more difficult because everyone is too tired to meet up from commuting all day and we still live so far apart! Insanity. Rant over.

I live just south of the Beltway....in an area that seems to "require" a 45-60 minute commute, but at least house prices are half what you listed. (The idea of paying $450k for a house makes my skin crawl.)

God, the commute in Houston is horrific. I lived both in Montrose (near downtown) and in the 'burbs, and living in the burbs was soul-sucking.

I always felt like at least in Houston the houses in the burbs were cheaper. I lived in a house backing up to a golf course with a pool and a ton of space and it was half the price of my 2 bedroom townhouse w no yard or amenities.

God, the commute in Houston is horrific. I lived both in Montrose (near downtown) and in the 'burbs, and living in the burbs was soul-sucking.

I always felt like at least in Houston the houses in the burbs were cheaper. I lived in a house backing up to a golf course with a pool and a ton of space and it was half the price of my 2 bedroom townhouse w no yard or amenities.

To move to the burbs and pay MORE seems completely crazy to me.

Are you currently in Montrose? That's where I am now!

Yes, usually it is slightly cheaper to have more space in the 'burbs in Houston, but I think he's getting into the mega-houses it seems. To each their own, but I would never go for that.

I live just south of the Beltway....in an area that seems to "require" a 45-60 minute commute, but at least house prices are half what you listed. (The idea of paying $450k for a house makes my skin crawl.)

Yes! I'm part of the group, however I try not to use FB too much and from what I've seen all of the meet-ups are in the 'burbs.

Location, location, location, right? I have a coworker moving from IL (suburbs) to UT. His new house is 50% more expensive, but is also 50% larger and comes on four times as much land (1/4 acre -> 1 acre). And yet, because property taxes are so much lower in UT, his mortgage payment will go down.

Turd Co-worker #1: "This company doesn't pay us enough and the cost of living here is too high" >> goes out to breakfast AND lunch EVERY.SINGLE.DAY day, comes in with a new gadget every week and talks about buying a $60k car (they already have 2 cars that work just fine). Oh and he's really into 'designer' sneakers (Never understood that one).

Turd Co-worker #2: Agrees with co-worker #1 >> buys $5k worth of new guns and related gadgets, and two brand new $30k vehicles in the past 6 months.